The Nip and Tuck of the Illinois Budget: Cuts to Children and Families

Governor Rauner’s recent cuts to the Illinois budget have left many working families struggling to pay for their single largest expense—childcare. The Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) makes it possible for low-income, working families to afford high quality childcare. However, the Governor’s office naming the state’s financial situation as an “emergency” has prompted sharp cuts to the program in light of Illinois’ fiscal shortfall. What do the cuts to CCAP mean for low-income families?

The Child Care Assistance Program, which is established through the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) by the federal government, really has two goals. The first is to serve as a work support so lower income families can afford childcare while continuing work, job training, or school. Historically, it serves as an income and employment support program.

Throughout the years, there has been an understanding that, in addition to that goal, it is also very important to meet the developmental needs of children. CCAP operates in a way that supports high quality childcare and also continuity of care for children, so that they’re not bouncing around between childcare providers, or having insecure care arrangements. Given these two goals, the Governor’s changes that went into effect July 1 really do fundamentally shift the goal of the program. It no longer is a support for working families; it no longer is an employment support.

Of the several restrictions that went into effect, the one that really does fundamentally change the mission of the program is the one that limits income from 185 percent of the federal poverty level, or $34,000 for a family of three, to 50 percent of the federal poverty level. 50 percent of the poverty level is $10,000 for a family of three. The large majority of CCAP beneficiaries, up to an estimated 90 percent in the greater St. Louis Metro East Area, become ineligible for CCAP with the new restrictions. So, you have really shifted what you want that program to accomplish.

With projected funding shortfalls in 2016, the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) initiated several major changes to mitigate the effects of the budget cuts. That includes priority eligibility for families that fall below 50 percent of the federal poverty level, or have a teenage parent in school, or a child with special needs in the household, among other possible priority eligibility criteria. These changes, as you mentioned, exclude 90 percent of the applicant pool. For working families barred from initial qualification for the program, what is their alternative funding stream for childcare?

Without CCAP offering subsidies, there is no other state-funded program to which families can turn specifically for childcare. Families then make a decision as to how they can afford childcare. I think common sense will tell us that the type of care that children go into becomes very different in quality and consistency. It really becomes more of an ad hoc arrangement. You can arrange anything from the 10-year-old walking the five-year-old home after school to a friend down the street that said, five hours a week, she can care for the baby on Tuesdays.

The havoc that creates for low-income families lies particularly in work schedules. It’s going to be very hard with ad hoc arrangements, if that’s what many families have to turn to in order to show up to work on time. Parents would then have to tell someone that last week I worked on Thursdays, but [this week] can you care for the baby on Tuesday? Yet, this isn’t the case when you are enrolled in a childcare center or a high quality, family childcare home. It’s not just about childcare centers; it’s about childcare places that have the quality, the oversight, and the staffing to support the delivery of high quality care. And I don’t know how families that otherwise would be receiving the subsidy will be able to afford it.

Some argue that CCAP does more than just provide families with access to high quality care, that it promotes job creation and vital economic growth. Without this government-subsidized program for working families, they are left to choose between caring for their child and economic necessity (i.e. working). How are families going to adjust to these new policy changes, and how will employers deal with predicted absenteeism?

I think the missing link to the advocacy conversation is employers and the Chamber of Commerce. We know from our own analysis of the seven-c County Metro East Region the characteristics of employers who have employees who are currently receiving the childcare subsidy. What we learned is that five of the region’s largest employers have over 500 employees receiving childcare subsidies, and the names of the employers wouldn’t be surprising to anyone. These are minimum wage jobs at places that have a lot of locations, and we know that these are places that have weekly shift work.

There is a lot of instability in hours, making it very difficult to sustain this type of work without consistent, accessible childcare. I don’t think that employers at this point have had the voice that they really should have for their own business interests in this conversation.

Families understand the restrictions are there because the number of applications that we are getting are lower compared to where we were a year ago. The word is out! It’s not really an open program at this point. As the months go on, employers will really start to see the effects.

Given the devastating nature of the impact this has on children and families, even Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently urged Rauner to “reconsider childcare cuts.” Although he remains unaffiliated with a social services organization, there are plenty of organizations that advocate on behalf of children and families. What, if any, coalition building has taken place? And following the expiration of the emergency rule, do you think there will be enough of an alliance to halt a permanent change?

Illinois has a very strong, early childhood advocacy and provider network. That network is so strong that we have very good early childhood policies, including a dedicated funding source for children zero to five years old in the state education budget. It’s interesting to note: that funding stream, called The Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG), received additional money. It had suffered through cuts like all human services had since 2009, but, this year, with our current budget condition, the ECBG received about a $20 million increase. That is a really important source of funding, and that funding is because of the partnership between providers and advocates in the state. That partnership has been very vocal about the impact of cuts to childcare.

The question is: How do you get your voice heard among all the other voices when the underlying issues are an estimated six to eight billion dollar budget shortfall and a reluctance by both sides of the aisle, and the governor’s administration, to sit down together and really hammer through the details of fixing the underlying budget crisis? There’s a limit as to how much advocates can do around that. We can create the conditions, we can tell the story, and we can give people the ammunition. Even so, at the end of the day, leaders have to lead.

With Illinois having a very strong, early childhood system, childcare plays a pivotal role in providing access for children to receive more preschool learning. When you’re from a working family, you often need eight hours of childcare or more per day. Illinois was early in creating a state-funded preschool program—Preschool For All—trying to increase access for all children up to 200 percent of the federal poverty line (FPL). We’ve never been able to reach that because of funding, but, certainly, there was understanding of just the absolute value of preschool education.

It shows a pretty progressive thought that, within the Illinois state education budget, you think that education begins at birth, not just when you enter kindergarten. Despite the fact that we have this funding service and have promoted preschool, I think that there is a lack of understanding that childcare is an essential component of making sure that children have access to preschool.

Our Preschool For All program is two and a half hours a day. A Head Start program is six hours a day and can oftentimes be shorter. So, if you’re a working family, how are you going to transport your child to only a two-and-a-half-hour program? You may not be able to. What you need is a full day childcare program that has a two-and-a-half-hour preschool component with a certified teacher.

Alternatively, you may need a Head Start program that also has time funded through CCAP in the morning and in the afternoon, so that you’ve got a full day covered while you’re at work. That’s CCAP at work. That’s how CCAP allows children to take advantage of these funded, well understood, well researched, quality preschool early education programs. Without childcare, you’re also limiting children’s access to things that we’ve put so much time and energy and resources into building, which is making preschool more accessible to at-risk, low-income children.

Featured Photo: cc/(woodleywonderworks)